Today in Labor History January 11, 1912: The Bread and Roses textile strike began in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The IWW organized and led this strike of 32,000 women and children after management slashed wages. A group of Polish women walked out after receiving their pay and realizing they’d been cheated. Others soon joined them. The strike lasted 10 weeks. Many sent their children to live with family, friends or supporters during the strike to protect them from the hunger and violence. Members of the Modern School took in many of these kids. During the strike, the cops kept arresting the women for loitering. So, they began to march as they protested. This was the first known use of the moving picket line. The strike was led by IWW organizers Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Big Bill Haywood, Joe Etter and Arturo Giovannitti. Hundreds were arrested, including Etter and Giovannitti, who were charged with murder. 3 workers died.
Today in Labor History January 7, 1919: Argentina’s "Bloody Week" (AKA Tragic Week) began in Buenos Aires. Workers were demonstrating for the 8-hour work day. The authorities opened fire, killing four and wounding 30. Clashes with the authorities on the day of the funerals left another 50 dead. In response, they called for a General Strike. Paramilitary groups attacked workers in collaboration with the police. By January 16 the authorities had fully crushed the strike, killing as many as 700 and wounding 2,000. Many of the victims were Jewish-Russian and Italian anarchist immigrants targeted by racists and anti-Bolshevik hysteria.
Today in Labor History December 25, 1910: A bomb destroyed a portion of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los Angeles (where the LA Times was printed). On October 1st, a bomb had destroyed much of the Los Angeles Times building, killing 21 employees and injuring over 100. The Iron Workers had been engaged in a brutal and protracted battle with U.S. Steel and the American Bridge Company, which was busting their union with spies, informants, scabs, and agents provocateur. Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Otis, who was viciously anti-union, provided propaganda for the bosses. By 1910, the owners had driven nearly all the unions from their plants, except for the Iron Workers union, which had instigated a bombing campaign starting in 1906. In April 1911, private detective William Burns and Chicago police sergeant William Reed kidnapped union organizer James McNamara and held him hostage for a week prior to illegally extraditing him to Los Angeles for the bombings. Burns later arrested his brother John, but denied him access to an attorney. Both McNamaras had been arrested based on the confession of a third man who had likely been tortured. And both were likely innocent of the bombings. Eugene Debs accused Otis, himself, of the Times bombing. James McNamara spent the rest of his life in San Quentin, dying there in 1941. John served 15 years and then went on to serve as an organizer for the Iron Workers.
Today in Labor History December 24, 1936: On Christmas Eve, drunk cops beat up 150 strikers on the Houston docks, sending 18 to the hospital. They were members of the Maritime Federation of the Gulf Coast. Gilbert Mers, who had dual membership in the Maritime Federation and the IWW, was their leader. Violence against dockers was rampant along the gulf coast in the 1930s. In July 1934, three black longshoremen were shot to death during a strike. In 1935, longshoremen struck along the entire gulf coast, with 14 more workers getting killed. From 1936 to 1938, 28 union members were killed and over 300 injured in strikes. Mers’ autobiography, “Working the Waterfront: The Ups and Downs of a Rebel Longshoreman,” was published in 1988, ten years before his death, at age 90. As a young man, Mers worked the docks in Corpus Christi, but went on to become President of the Corpus Christi Central Labor Council and the President of the Maritime Federation of the Gulf Coast, while remaining a dedicated dual member of the IWW throughout his life. He was part of the effort to establish an industry-wide union along the Gulf Coast states. In his autobiography, he exposes the brutality and corruption of the Texas Rangers in the 1930s-‘40s, and their use as violent, strike-breaking bullies with badges.
Today in Labor History December 17, 2003: Sex work rights activists established December 17 (or "D17") as International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers to memorialize victims of Seattle’s Green River killer, who targeted prostitutes, and to highlight hate crimes and State violence against sex workers by police. The first event was organized by Annie Sprinkle and Robyn Few. The red umbrella was first used as a symbol for sex workers’ rights in Venice, Italy in 2001.
Today in Labor History December 17, 1951: American Civil Rights Congress (CRC) delivered their "We Charge Genocide" paper to the UN. They accused the U.S. government of genocide based on the UN Genocide Convention, citing many instances of lynching, legal discrimination, disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, police brutality and systematic inequalities in health and quality of life. The U.S. government and press accused the CRC of promoting Communism. The State Department forced CRC secretary William L. Patterson to surrender his passport after presenting the petition to the UN.
Today in Labor History December 11, 2005: The Cronulla race riots occurred in Sydney, Australia. The riots began in the suburb of Cronulla and spread to several other suburbs over the next few nights. They were triggered by an altercation between white lifeguards and a group of youths of Middle-Eastern appearance. The far-right Australia First Party and Patriotic Youth League were involved in the fighting. Chain-texting led to the rapid arrival of reinforcements. By midday Sunday, December 11, roughly 5,000 people had arrived at the beach. People attacked cops and ambulances. Two people were stabbed.
Today in Labor History December 6, 1889: The trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists began amidst national and international outrage and protest. None of the men on trial had even been at Haymarket Square when the bomb was set off. They were on trial because of their anarchist political affiliations and their labor organizing for the 8-hour work-day. 4 were ultimately executed, including Alber Parsons, husband of future IWW founding member Lucy Parsons. One, Louis Ling, cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell. The Haymarket Affairs is considered the origin of International Workers Day, May 1st, celebrated in virtually every country in the world, except for the U.S., where the atrocity occurred. Historically, it was also considered the culmination of the Great Upheaval, which a series of strike waves and labor unrest that began in Martinsburg, West Virginia, 1877, and spread throughout the U.S., including the Saint Louis Commune, when communists took over and controlled the city for several days. Over 100 workers were killed across the U.S. in the weeks of strikes and protests. Communists and anarchists also organized strikes in Chicago, where police killed 20 men and boys. Albert and Lucy Parsons participated and were influenced by these events. I write about this historical period in my Great Upheaval Trilogy. The first book in this series, Anywhere But Schuylkill, came out in September, 2023, from Historium Press. Check it out here: https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/it/michael-dunn and https://michaeldunnauthor.com/
Today in Labor History December 4, 1969: Chicago Black Panthers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, were assassinated by the Chicago Police, with assistance from the FBI. Hampton was chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party (BPP) and deputy chairman of the national BPP. He founded the antiracist, anti-classist Rainbow Coalition, which included the Black Panthers, Young Lords and Young Patriots (a radical poor white people’s movement). On the night of the assassination, an infiltrator drugged Hampton with barbiturates. He remained unconscious when the cops entered his bedroom, dragged away his pregnant girlfriend, then fired several shots into his chest and head.
Today in Labor History December 3, 1984: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed over 3,800 people and injured up to 600,000 more. Up to 16,000 people died, in total, over the years following the disaster. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has paid compensation to family members of 3,787 of the victims killed. Numerous local activist groups emerged to support the victims of the disaster, like Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, who won the Goldman Prize in 2004. Many of the activists were subjected to violent repression by the police and government. Larger international groups, like Greenpeace and Pesticide Action Network also got involved. The disaster has played a role in numerous works of fiction, including Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” (2017) and Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People” (2007). It has also been referenced in music by the Revolting Cocks “Union Carbide” and the Dog Faced Hermans ”Bhopal.”
Today in Labor History November 30, 1999: Thousands of activists, students, union members, environmentalists and others shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Seattle. It was the first large-scale demonstration in the United States to protest “globalization” and the beginning of many similar protests. The WTO protest raised awareness of corporate greed while simultaneously promoting the delusion that, with a few reforms, capitalism and democracy would serve the needs of the people.
Today in Labor History November 27, 1978: Former cop and supervisor Dan White assassinated San Francisco’s mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk. A jury later acquitted White on the Twinkie Defense, claiming that he had gone temporarily insane from junk food. This travesty of justice led to the White Night Riot, after decades of police harassment and physical abuse of San Francisco’s LGBTQ community. People attacked the windows of City Hall. When the cops tried to protect the building, people hurled rocks and bottles at them, forcing them to run inside. Where ever the cops showed up, people threw rocks at them. At least a dozen cop cars were torched. They busted windows in the financial district and in government buildings. Many people were injured. The riot caused hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of property damage to City Hall. And when the riot was finally subdued, the cops made a retaliatory raid on the Elephant Bar, in the Castro District. Cops in riot gear beat patrons. They arrested 24 people.
The double assassination of Moscone and Milk dramatically altered the political landscape of San Francisco. Under Moscone and Milk, the city was moving in a progressive, pro-neighborhood direction. With the new mayor, Diane Feinstein, city politics returned to the traditional, conservative, pro-Chamber of Commerce, law and order framework that preceded Moscone and Milk. And Feinstein parlayed her success as SF mayor into a long and sordid career in Congress, where she was a strong proponent of Capital Punishment, vitriolic opponent of the Green New Deal, supporter of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, and generally supported U.S. imperialist policy abroad.
Today in Labor History November 23, 1903: Army troops were sent to Cripple Creek, Colorado to put down a rebellion by striking coal miners. 600 union members were thrown into a military bullpen, and held for weeks without charges. When a lawyer arrived with a writ of habeas corpus, General Bell, who led the repression, responded "Habeas corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems!” The strike was led by Big Bill Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners, which, at the time, was the most militant union in the country, calling for revolution and abolition of the wage system.
Today in Labor History November 21, 1921: The original Columbine Massacre occurred in Serine, Colorado. State police and company thugs used machine guns against the unarmed miners, slaughtering six striking IWW members, all of whom were unarmed. Dozens more were injured.
"We just witnessed overt violations of our civil rights on a road named after the U.S. Constitution. Atlanta claims itself to be a civil rights hub, but it erases its own legacy when protests arise that confront the power of politicians and police. The police's violence against protestors today affirms our belief that Cop City must never be built."
Today in Labor History November 13, 1922: A railway workers' strike in Guayaquil, Ecuador grew into a general strike, which lasted 3 days and culminated in a massacre on Nov 15, when Police and military shot down over 300 workers. Trolley workers continued to strike throughout November, eventually winning many of their demands.
Today in Labor History November 13, 1887: Police charged a crowd of unemployed protesters in Trafalgar Square, London, killing three and arresting over 300 in what was to become known as "Bloody Sunday." At least 400 people were seriously injured, including one who was bayoneted. It also became a turning point in the British struggle for free speech, with William Morris, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw all speaking out against this repression. Eleanor Marx, Karl’s youngest daughter, also participated.
Today in Labor History November 11, 1887: Four of the Haymarket Martyrs, including Albert Parsons and August Spies, were executed. Louis Lingg, who was also scheduled to be executed on this date, cheated the state by killing himself in his cell the day before. There was no evidence linking any of the men to the Haymarket bombing that had occurred earlier in the year. In 1893, Illinois Governor John Altgeld granted a posthumous pardon because he, and his 7 codefendants were actually all innocent of the Haymarket bombing. None of them had even been present at Haymarket square when the bomb was thrown. All 8 were, however, anarchists, and were railroaded because of the political beliefs and affiliations.
Today in Labor History November 5, 2001: At least four hunger strikers who were protesting Turkish prison conditions died in a police raid. Their deaths brought the total to 45 deaths in that year. Hundreds of jailed left-wing militants had joined the death fast to protest being kept in isolation cells in “F-type” high security prisons, subjected to torture, beatings and abuse.